People v. Williams

This is an automatic appeal from a judgment of death. (Pen. Code, § 1239, subd. (b); all further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.)

A jury convicted defendant Darren Charles Williams of four counts of first degree murder. (§ 187.) But the jury failed to reach a verdict on the special circumstance allegation of multiple murder. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3).) The special circumstance allegation was then tried before a second jury, which found it to be true and returned a verdict of death. The trial court denied defendant’s automatic motion to modify penalty (§ 190.4, subd. (e)), and sentenced him to death.

We affirm the convictions of four counts of first degree murder, but prejudicial error in the retrial of the special circumstance allegation requires that we set aside the jury’s finding on the special circumstance and reverse the judgment of death.

I. Facts and Proceedings

Early in the morning of August 31, 1984, 58-year-old Ebora Alexander died in her South Central Los Angeles home from multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Three other household members—the victim’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, Dietria Alexander, and two visiting…

I concur in the opinion of the court prepared by Justice Kennard.

I write separately in order to supplement what is there stated on the question whether the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, precludes a second trial for defendant on the multiple-murder special circumstance for purposes of death eligibility.

Without a doubt, we are compelled to find that the evidence introduced at the death-eligibility phase of defendant’s trial, following the superior court’s declaration of mistrial, was insufficient as a matter of law to support the jury’s adverse determination on the multiple-murder special circumstance. In People v. Turner (1984) 37 Cal.3d 302, 328-329 [ 208 Cal.Rptr. 196 , 690 P.2d 669 ]—which we would later overrule in People v. Anderson (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1104, 1149-1150 [ 240 Cal.Rptr. 585 , 742 P.2d 1306 ]—we had held that intent to kill was an element of this special circumstance. At this phase of defendant’s trial, there was no evidence on the issue whatsoever. “[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause precludes a second trial once the reviewing…